Addicted to You (Addicted #1)(26)

He calls after me, but I don’t listen. His door shuts on my way out, and the cold air rushes into my body, waking me up but sending me back at the same time. My car sits in the rear of the parking lot of his apartment complex. I walk quickly, but my pace doesn’t carry off the memories. They stay.

“Let’s watch the movie.” Lo didn’t look at me.

I only knew one way to make a person feel good, something I believed was better. Impulsively, I reached for his hand. I held it, and he frowned, staring at me like I’d grown horns. But at the same time, his reddening eyes looked eager to take hold of something other than the pain that plagued him.

The parking lot. I yank open the door to my BMW and fumble with my phone, finding some numbers I haven’t exhausted yet. I set up a few random meeting places. Yes. Yes. Yes. No.

I kissed Lo’s lips. Softly, gently. And then I led him to the couch where our hands roamed more hungrily, our bodies moved more passionately, needing to feed our temptations and close out everything else.

We had sex for the first time. The only time.

Afterwards, Lo drank himself to oblivion. And I sprawled out on the couch, making a promise with myself to never sleep with Loren Hale ever again. To never cross that line. Once was enough. It could have ruined our friendship, but we acted as though nothing transpired, as though the moment came with heightened spirits and unleveled heads.

I won’t make a mistake that can cost us what we have. So I pocket my phone, put my car in reverse, and make new plans. Ones that involve blank faces and unpainted canvases. Ones that don’t involve him.





{8}


The next few days blur. I manage to avoid Lo each time I arrive and depart from the apartment. On the occasions that I sleep at the Drake, I wear earbuds to deafen Lo and Cassie’s love-making noises. Mostly, I spend the night somewhere else, any place that involves anonymous sex and the surprise of a mystery man.

My new discovery invades my waking hours. If I’m not scrolling through tons of unknown numbers, I research Craigslist for anyone willing to hookup. I have yet to use the online resource for a lay, but the allure brings me back. With only a screen name to go off of, I find myself imagining the person on the other end. What they look like. What I could do to them in bed.

The more Lo pulls away, the more I turn to sex, the only thing I can reach for. It feels like he’s wedging a large space between us. He hasn’t asked me for a ride in a whole week, and we’ve stopped discussing our nightly plans together. I used to be able to draw up his schedule as fluidly as my own. Now, I couldn’t tell you if he made it to bed last night without passing out.

I lie on my purple sheets, contemplating my very small existence and staring at the sun. It crests the sky, shining bright rays through the slits in my blinds. An arm drapes across my bare back. I don’t want to wake him. Hopefully his eyes will flutter open while I feign sleepiness. I’ve been up since five in the morning, thinking and gazing at the same spot. The sun. The window. My life.

Bang! The noise from my door jolts me. “Lily!” Lo knocks again, his fist slamming into the white wood.

My heart lodges in my throat. I put a pillow over my head, spinning and crashing in a post-drunk tidal wave. The door clicks, and I curse the fact that Lo has a key.

My groggy male guest props himself up. “Who are you?” he asks with a yawn.

“Don’t talk so loud,” another voice groans. What?! I did not…Did I? There are two guys in my bed! I didn’t…I couldn’t have had sex with both of them. I search my memories, but I blank when I reach my anonymous “date” at a bar. Booze forgives all transgressions, but it doesn’t help with the morning after.

My limbs have petrified.

“Both of you, get the fuck out,” Lo sneers. “Now!”

Quickly, the two guys shuffle for their clothes, pulling on articles while I disintegrate into my sheets and cower underneath another comforter. When they finally disappear, silence blankets the room.

Usually whenever Lo kicks a guy out in the morning, he’s so blasé about it. Sometimes he even offers the poor guy a cup of coffee before he leaves. This is not normal.

While I avoid his gaze, Lo paces, and I hear the crinkle of plastic. I peek from my sheet-cave.

He’s cleaning?

I use a part of the sheet to cover my chest and straighten up. “What are you doing?” My voice comes out small and choked. He doesn’t answer. Instead, he stays focused on tossing the empty beer bottles into a black trash bag along with many articles of clothing. Boy clothing.

For the first time in days, I actually look at my room. Layered in different underwear, spilled with bottles of booze and tainted with white powder on my vanity—it’s disgusting. My floor hides beneath mounds of debauchery and sin. Half the sheets pile on the ground, and used condoms scatter my rug. It feels like I woke up in someone else’s bed.

“Stop,” I tell him, shame sending tears. “You don’t have to do that.”

He tosses an empty box of condoms into the bag before looking up at me. His expression remains inscrutable, scaring me even more. “Go take a shower. Get dressed, and then we’ll go.”

“Where?”

“Out.” He turns his back and continues trashing my things. I’ve cleaned his room countless times, but he was always unconscious to the world when I did it.